DOUBTFUL EXISTENCE OF PAL2EOZOIC BEDS. 
31 
the times were alike. When the different thicknesses of tertiary beds in different countries are 
considered, from the trifling and unconsolidated beds of Ireland and Sweden, to the extensive 
deposits of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, or the thinner beds of the southern States, 
with the more extensive ones west of the Sierra Nevada, it must be admitted that more time 
was consumed in the formation of the one than in the other. Both bear evidences of quiet 
deposition, and the rate of deposition might have been the same on both slopes ; yet, as the 
Californian beds are much thicker, more time was consumed in their formation, and while their 
later beds were being formed, either there was a cessation of deposit on the eastern slope, or the 
Quaternary period had already commenced there. 
Whether palaeozoic or silurian be hereafter found in southern California or no, it must, how¬ 
ever, be admitted that these beds are of slight thickness; for it would not be easy for beds of 
carboniferous limestone, having the thickness found at the slope of the Organ mountains or on 
the Pinaleno ranges, in New Mexico, to have escaped observation, especially as they were 
sought for, nor could the more powerful Devonian sandstones of Calitro and the Mogollon 
mountains be overlooked; if such beds are represented in south California, they must have 
thinned out very much as they passed westward ; if they exist at all beneath the Colorado 
desert and lower steppe of the Basin, (the Mojave Basin,) the upheavals have not been suffici¬ 
ently pronounced to disclose them ; but there have been many granitic exposures in south 
California, and not one position where the older stratified beds can be said to be in place and 
unaltered. 
